HAMMER FILM FESTIVAL

June 3 @ 13:30 - 23:00

Event Navigation

From the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s Hammer Film Productions became world famous for their particularly British brand of horror film. They were the first studio to dare test the BBFC with horror in colour, and mixed a fantastical, historical central Europe known by fans as ‘Hammerland’ and Kensington Gore fake blood with English gentlemen and scantily clad women for two decades before they were defeated by a new generation of extreme horror film from the US and elsewhere.

Hammer was more than these few iconic images though, and it was more than its most famous Dracula and Frankenstein series. Somewhere between a festival and a public conference, our HAMMER FESTIVAL is a jam-packed three days of Hammer double-bills, celebrating some of the lesser-appreciated works of the studio, short talks from academic experts specialising in cult cinema and Hammer Film Productions, a late bar and Hammer quiz with awesome prizes. Whether you’d be revisiting or viewing the films for the first time, whether you’re a die-hard fan or scholar, we invite you enjoy an eclectic range of films from the studio’s classic period and reconsider the Hammer formula, exploring gender, Cold War science fiction, French audience’s love of Hammer’s noirs, colonial anxieties, and the studio’s unmade scripts as well as some of the later monster films.

Join us for a weekend of nostalgia and fandom, and for analysis and reflection about Britain’s most legendary studio. Guest speakers include Hammer experts Dr Stacey Abbott, Roehampton University; Dr Victoria Grace Walden, University of Sussex; and Kieran Foster, De Montfort University, and cult film expert Dr Matt Melia.